Not every invoice gets paid in one go. A client sends a check for $8,000 against a $10,000 invoice and promises the rest next week. Or they want to split a big payment across two credit cards, because neither one has a high enough limit. Either way, you want to take the money you’ve got, record it, and keep a clear eye on what’s still owed.
Eano lets you record as many payments as you need against a single invoice. Each one gets its own amount, date, method, and receipt. Eano adds them up, shows the Balance that’s left, and keeps the invoice open until it’s paid in full. This works the same on invoices you build by hand and on the payment requests you send from your milestones.
Why It Matters
Before you can chase a balance, you have to know exactly what it is. When a partial payment gets recorded as “paid,” the remaining money quietly disappears from your books. When it gets left as “unpaid,” the money you’ve already received goes missing instead. Recording each payment as it actually comes in keeps your Income list, your client’s portal, and (if you use it) QuickBooks all telling the same story: here’s what came in, here’s what’s left.
Recording a Payment
You can record payments from the Income list, either on one project (open the project, then the Finances tab) or across all of them (Finances in the left-hand navigation, then Income).
Find the invoice or milestone row and click Mark as paid.
In Price, enter the amount you actually received. The box shows how much is still owed, for example “2,000.00 remaining”, so you don’t have to work it out.
Set the Payment Date, which is the day the money came in. It starts as today.
Pick the Payment Method. For a check, Zelle, bank transfer, or card, a Reference box appears for the check number or confirmation number.
Add a Payment Memo if you want an internal note, such as “first check, rest promised Friday.”
Under Attachments, drop in a photo of the check or a PDF of the remittance, if you have one.
Click Record $X Payment. The button shows the amount you’re recording.
That’s it. The invoice now shows the money in, and the button on the row changes from Mark as paid to Add payment. When the next payment arrives, click Add payment and do the same thing again.
You can’t record more than what’s still owed. If you type a bigger number, you’ll see “The amount entered exceeds the remaining invoice amount of $X.” and the button won’t let you save until you fix it.
What You’ll See on the Income List
Once a payment is recorded, the row carries a small arrow on the left. Click it to open the row and see each payment underneath on its own line: when it was paid, how much, the method and reference (for example Paid via Check (1044)), and who recorded it.
The invoice’s own row sums everything up:
Received is the total of every payment recorded so far.
Payment Method shows the method when every payment came in the same way. If they came in different ways (say, one check and one Zelle), it reads Multiple payments. Hover over it to see each payment and its method.
Paid Date shows the most recent payment. Hover over it to see every date.
Status reads Incomplete (in yellow) while some, but not all, of the invoice is paid. Once the payments add up to the full amount, it changes to Paid.
What You’ll See on the Invoice
Open the invoice and you’ll see the same story laid out the way your client sees it. The Paid on section near the top lists each payment with its date, method, and amount. At the bottom, under the Grand Total, every payment gets its own line, followed by the total Paid and the Balance still owed.
A partly paid invoice doesn’t get the PAID stamp. That only goes on once the balance reaches zero. The downloadable PDF shows the same payment lines and balance.
What Your Client Sees
Your client’s portal keeps up with every payment you record, so they always know where they stand:
Home keeps the invoice under Payment Required until it’s paid off, and spells out what’s left: “On 10/12/2026 we sent you Invoice”A7399CFE-1638”, which totals $2,200.00, with $1,700.00 remaining due on 10/19/2026.”
Invoices shows a partly paid invoice with an Incomplete tag and a Balance remaining figure in place of the full total. There’s also an Incomplete filter, so they can pull those up quickly.
Paid on inside each invoice lists every payment, along with the name of whoever on your team recorded it.
(The Make Payment buttons are greyed out in that screenshot only because it was taken in Client Preview. Your client’s buttons work normally.)
When your client clicks Make Payment on a partly paid invoice, Eano asks them for the balance only, not the original total. If you pass card fees on to your client, the fee is worked out on that balance too.
Recording a payment doesn’t send your client a message. They’ll see it the next time they open their portal.
Fixing a Payment
Open the invoice’s row on the Income list, then either click the payment itself or use its ••• menu:
Edit reopens the payment so you can change the amount, date, method, reference, memo, or attachments. Click Save when you’re done.
Delete removes it after a “Delete this payment?” confirmation. This can’t be undone.
The invoice’s received amount, status, and balance update right away either way. Payments your client made online, by card or bank transfer through Eano, can’t be edited or deleted, because they match what really moved through the payment processor.
Once an invoice is fully paid, there’s nowhere to add another payment. If you need to, edit or remove one of the existing payments first.
Milestone Payment Requests
Partial payments work the same way on the payment requests you send from your milestones. That covers the common case where a client gets the full milestone request and sends back a smaller check.
There’s one difference. A milestone doesn’t use the Incomplete status. It keeps its current status (for example, Request sent) while it’s partly paid, and the Received column and the payment rows show what’s come in so far. When your payments reach the full amount, the milestone switches to Paid on its own, just as if you’d marked it paid in one go. If you later edit or delete a payment and it drops back below the full amount, the milestone goes back to Request sent.
This is different from progress payments, where you decide to bill only part of a milestone. Here you’ve billed the whole amount and the client paid only some of it. For billing a milestone in pieces, see Billing Partial Progress Against a Milestone.
When One Invoice Covers Several Milestones
If an invoice bills more than one milestone and your client pays only part of it, Eano can’t know which milestone they meant to pay. Instead it splits each payment between the milestones in proportion to how much of the invoice each one makes up. For example, if one milestone is $1,200 of a $2,200 invoice, it gets $1,200 / $2,200 of every payment.
As you type the amount, the payment dialog shows exactly how it’ll be split, with the note “Calculated based on each milestone’s share of this invoice.” You can’t change the split yourself. When you look at one of those milestones later, its payment rows show just that milestone’s share, followed by “of” and the full payment amount.
A Few Things Worth Knowing
Past due beats Incomplete. Once a partly paid invoice passes its due date, its status reads Past due instead of Incomplete. The Received column and the payment rows still show everything that’s come in.
Your client can’t choose a smaller amount online. Partial payments are something you record. When your client pays through their portal, they pay the whole remaining balance. If you’d rather bill a job in planned pieces, use progress payments.
A Zelle or check payment your client reports waits on you. When your client tells Eano they’ve paid by Zelle or check, it shows up as its own payment row marked Payment processing. It doesn’t count toward Received yet. Once the money arrives, click Mark as paid on that row to confirm it, or delete it if it never came.
Voiding has a few limits. You can void a manual invoice with payments you recorded yourself, and those payments stay on it, read-only. You can’t void an invoice that has a card or bank payment made online through Eano, or one with a client-reported Zelle or check payment still waiting for you to confirm or delete it. On a milestone payment request, delete the recorded payments before voiding.
QuickBooks gets each payment separately. If you sync invoices to QuickBooks, each payment you record becomes its own payment in QuickBooks, with the reference and memo included. Editing a payment updates it in QuickBooks, and deleting one voids it there. If you’ve already put a payment into a bank deposit in QuickBooks, take it out of that deposit in QuickBooks before deleting it in Eano. Each payment you record yourself goes into Undeposited Funds in QuickBooks unless you check This payment has already been deposited into your bank account when you record it. If you do, it’s recorded straight into the bank account you choose. See the QuickBooks Integration Guide.
Who can record payments. Anyone on your team with access to Finances (Owners, Admins, Managers, and Superusers) can record, edit, and delete payments.
On the go. You can also record payments from the Eano Pro mobile app: open the invoice and tap Mark as Paid, or + Add Payment once one’s already recorded. Make sure your app is up to date.
Frequently Asked Questions
My client paid less than the invoice. Do I have to void it and send a new one? No. Record what they paid with Mark as paid, and the invoice stays open with the Balance showing what’s left. When the rest comes in, click Add payment.
My client wants to pay with two credit cards. Can they? Not in one go online. Online, your client always pays the full remaining balance. If they pay you outside Eano in two pieces, record each one as its own payment. If you need them to pay online in two pieces, bill the work as two separate requests instead.
Why does my invoice say “Past due” instead of “Incomplete”? Because it’s past its due date. Past due takes priority so overdue money stands out. Open the row to see the payments recorded so far.
My milestone is partly paid but doesn’t say Incomplete. Is something wrong? No. Milestones keep their usual status while they’re partly paid and switch to Paid once the full amount is in. The Received column shows how much has come in.
I recorded the wrong amount. How do I fix it? Open the invoice’s row on the Income list, click the payment (or its ••• menu, then Edit), correct the amount, and save. Everything recalculates.
Why isn’t there an Add payment button on a paid invoice? Because nothing’s left to pay. If a payment was recorded wrong and you need room to add another, edit or delete the incorrect one first.
Does my client get a message when I record a payment? No. Your client sees it in their portal, but Eano doesn’t email or text them about it.
Can my client see who recorded a payment? Yes. Each payment in their Paid on list shows the name of the person on your team who recorded it.
Related Articles